How are you doing, really? This question only begins to scratch the surface of our health, physically, mentally and emotionally. In today’s Monday’s Motivation series, we look at how one woman is championing mental health at what you might call the core of the issue – the workplace.
Enoch Li is the founder of Bearapy – a China-based social impact consulting and training company committed to embedding mental health into organisations’ company culture. They work primarily in Asia-Pacific and serve clients globally.
So Enoch, why mental health and why at the workplace?
Because I almost killed myself from burnout and depression 14 years ago. Through that experience, I learnt that there is health, there is mental health, that processing emotions is fundamental to self-awareness and hence the capacity to make decisions that are conducive to my well-being and leadership.
As I learnt more about this experience, I realized that the issue is more widespread than I would have thought – 300+ million people around the world live with depression, and 1 person takes their own lives every 40 seconds. If I can help only those with my similar backgrounds, having grown up in a competitive environment in Hong Kong, to just even be aware of this topic and start reflecting, then perhaps I have contributed somehow to the community’s greater good. The aspiration for Bearapy is to strengthen awareness and psychosocial education for more than just people in my demographic, so that they can process the experience when it happens for them, and not think that depression equates failure, as I did for years.
Hence, mental health.
We all spend a huge chunk of time in the workplace, whatever the workplace looks like. Very few of us exist in silo even working as freelancers. We work with people. And working with people is usually where misalignment and issues develop. With my corporate management background and organizational psychology / behaviour studies and research, I decided that if I can influence workplaces to not be toxic and instigate burnout in the firstplace, then we can address the root causes of this prevalent phenomenon and impact more people all at once. Plus, every year companies lose billions of dollars due to employee unwellness and the World Economic Forum estimates that the global economy loses USD1trillion in productivity as a result. That is a lot of loss when we can be conserving our health to do something good for each other. So, I decided we need to change this around.
Mental health is not just about self-care or eating well when it comes to the workplace. It is about team dynamics, relationships, communication, organizational culture, business strategy, processes, and psychological safety. We are talking about corporate responsibility and employee welfare at large. These are human lives and integrity we are talking about. A la base, it is human kindness and respect. So simple, and yet so difficult for many.
Hence, mental health at the workplace.
To be honest though, perhaps it is simply my stubbornness that I am convinced this is an important topic, and more people should talk about it. And I feel most comfortable in a corporate setting and don’t want to be a shrink. So, mental health and at the workplace.
It’s been about 3 years since jingkids last interviewed you, what has Bearapy accomplished in that time?
Bearapy has built a great team with the sense of psychological safety to try and fail, make mistakes, process emotions, share with each other, and genuinely care. That, above all, is more important than any revenue numbers or profit margin to me. I wanted to prove that a business can still be a business if we put our own team first. It is possible, and more businesses should do this.
We have also expanded the team, including Business Growth Directors, Consultants & Facilitators, and a Social Impact team of volunteers. I am proud that they can co-create and deliver quality work to our clients, and I can focus on the company’s growth and strategy. I appreciate mostly their dedication and commitment to go all those thousand miles further for the mission of the company to build sustainable mental health in workplaces, and also for their own career and personal development. Many of them now represent Bearapy as speakers at international conferences or local events such as the Together Against Stigma Conference.
Personally, I have started becoming a Lecturer at INSEAD business school on Resilient Leadership, which is a combination of organizational psychology from a systems psychodynamics approach, workplace mental health, and leadership development. This was a personal goal since 7 or 8 years ago, but back then, the market was not ready for even mental health as a topic. I am a Board Member / Non-Executive Director and I advise on ESGs and global mental health policy from a lived experience perspective, including offering expert opinion to WHO’s policy papers on mental health and manager training for the topic.
What’s in the pipeline for Bearapy in the near future?
Bearapy is looking for strategic partnerships and investment so that we can expand and grow at a faster rate and help more people and advise more organizations in their employee strategy. We are also looking into reestablishing our subsidiary in Singapore after Covid to take a stronger foothold in Asia.
We see that Bearapy is recruiting! Tell us what are the best perks of the job please.
Working with a team that is generous with each other, encouraging, motivating, a psychological safe space to bring the parts of you that you want to bring to work, a space to learn and develop and grow.
Flexible work hours and remote work as long as agreed projects are delivered on time – we trust YOU, and the wellness of our employees also matter to us!Fair remuneration, and flexible arrangements upon discussion. Working at Bearapy gives you the opportunity to create meaningful social impact and receive extensive mentoring and support on the job.
For more information about Bearapy, please contact Desiree de Wit at desiree@bearapy.me.
Images: Courtesy of Bearapy
